Upgrade Bipole Dipole Speaker Help

[Marc B.]

I now have Polk RT55i Mains
Polk CS400i Center
Polk RT25i Rears
Would the Polk FX300i or new FXi3 Sound better for rear speakers than the RT25i which I have now?
The FX speakers are Bipole-Dipole speakers.
Any help will be great.
Thanks,
Marc

[nightflier]

I used to have a Polk 5.1 system (w/o dipoles), but I changed that to an Axiom speaker system about two years ago. My first impression when I added the Axiom Quadpole speakers (they have 4 drivers, not two), was that the surround sound was much harder to localise and seemed more diffuse. That said, the effect is not irritating at all. On many soundtracks it made my small TV room seem much bigger than it is. In landscape scenes, for example, the effect is very striking.

Note that quad/dipole speakers are designed to play off the reflections of your walls so they are best placed on the sides and in a room with no acoustic treatments around the listening position or the rear wall (incl. curtains, bookcases). I also recently added two rear surround speakers (not quad/dipole) to the back wall and this added a slightly more localized feel to the sound. Of course the setup for all these options is much more difficult. It took me weeks to get the system to sound the way I like it and I am still tweaking things here & there.

Also, it has been my experience that surround music (I've only tried SACD) does not take advantage of the rear surround speakers; they are turned off during playback. Also, quad/dipoles are probably not the best option for surround music - I get the sense that sound engineers who work on the soundtracks, 'design' the music for direct-radiating surround speakers, not quad/dipoles. But that is IMO, and limitted by my own collection of SACD's.